Inclusion and more

I cannot believe it's almost been ONE year of dating Adam Pitts. Adam is my best friend, my soulmate and my supporter.  Adam and I first met at an alumni bowling party for Chaparral High School. I knew I liked him a lot and considered him someone who was highly dateable. We exchanged cell numbers and quickly Facebook friended each other. Adam quickly became a donor of my Best Buddies fundraising efforts. He's been a donor for a few years ago.  A few months after he broke up with his now ex girlfriend.  I told him I liked him and that I wanted to date him when he became available.  While a few months after that we started dating officially and we went on our FIRST OFFICIAL DATE at Romano's Macaroni Grill. During the date, we discovered we share the same beliefs for disability employment and inclusion. We did a photo shoot before the date so we have pictures together to celebrate life's achievements together like possibly a future engagement.  When I...

When I was a freshmen at Chaparral High School I was officially introduced to the Best Buddies club. Best Buddies mission is to pair people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities in one-to-one friendships.  I did not know my life would change as much as it has.  I have held various leadership roles for Best Buddies. I have been the Buddy Director, a Buddy Ambassador, a member of the Best Buddies Young Leaders Council and an intern two times now. Like I say below I currently intern at Best Buddies AZ's office and I did the same internship in high school!  During my sophomore year I was matched with my peer buddy (student without a disability) Elaine Helton. Elaine and I went to Country Thunder, went bowling,  celebrated our birthdays together and attended Best Buddies Arizona events.   We had a blast developing a lifelong friendship through two years of friendship.  We got to know each others families. Elaine attended Chaparral's gr...

As you might know, I am part of a transition program for adults with autism and part of the program focuses on employment. Students in this program with staff members from SARRC to help them find employment during the year. Because I work at a school and we have the summers off,  I had to find a summer job. During one of my summer employment meetings with my job coach we were discussing internships and we kept working as a team to find me a job.  We had yet to hear anything from a few perspective employments so being the doer I am I reached out to Best Buddies staff members I knew from Best Buddies Arizona to see if they knew of any internships or even if they had an internship available.  I got replies back from staff members and they said they had an internship. A few weeks after that I responded to the staff members who told me about the internship and said I was excited to pursue their internship program.  My job coach was all over this opportunity, which all...